Tennessee senator wants 3 regents ousted

Miffed by unexplained absence from hearing

NASHVILLE -- A Fayette County state senator has filed a bill to remove three members of the Board of Regents who she said held her committee in "utter contempt" by not attending a hearing last summer or notifying her why.

Sen. Dolores Gresham, R-Somerville, filed SR 29 this week to remove Regents Jonas Kisber of Jackson and Agenia Clark and Robert P. Thomas of Nashville. The Senate approved the resolution on the first of three required readings Thursday.

If it occurs, it will be the first time since the Tennessee Board of Regents was created in 1972 that a member has been removed by the legislature. Regents, who are not state officials, serve without pay for six-year terms.

It's the latest flare-up in a political fight that erupted last August when the Board of Regents chose former state Comptroller John Morgan chancellor of the state university and community college system it oversees.

Morgan is a Democrat who became a top aide to former governor Phil Bredesen in 2009 after the new Republican majority in the legislature replaced him with a Republican comptroller.

Gresham, a retired Marine and farmer, chairs the Senate Education Committee, which called in board members last Sept. 28-29 to ask them about the chancellor search process. Nine attended.

Clark, Kisber and Thomas did not and, according to Gresham, did not inform her why. The matter sat dormant until Gresham this week filed a bill to "reject the appointments" of the three. The governor's appointments to the board are in effect unless the Senate rejects them.

Thomas delivered to Gresham later Thursday a letter from all three apologizing to her and the committee, saying they meant no disrespect and they mistakenly thought word of their inability to appear had reached her before the hearing convened.

"In retrospect, we wish we had done a better job of communicating with you directly about the various circumstances that prohibited our availability during the hearings."

Thomas said he was unable to attend for medical reasons. Clark, chief executive of the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, did not return a reporter's call. Kisber, a retired Jackson businessman, could not be reached.

Gresham said, before Thursday's letter arrived, that she "has no reason not to" press ahead.

"First off, they engineered a process for the selection of TBR's new chancellor in such a flawed -- it was so flawed that their behavior reverberated throughout the higher education community as well as the general public.

"And these three refused to appear and did not send any formal message, no explanation, nothing. So to my mind I think they held not only the Tennessee General Assembly and the state legislature (the same entity) but the Senate of the state of Tennessee in utter contempt," she said.

Asked if Thomas' medical care at the time should mitigate, Gresham said, "If I was going to be hospitalized I would tell my staff to be so kind as to tell the Senate Education Committee that I can't be there."